Gadetry

Windows 7 Gadgets (and possibly Windows Vista Gadgets as well) are broken. I like to put the default analogue clock, calendar, weather, and CPU meter (and somtimes a newsfeed) on there, but they're nothing I can't do without. While the only issues I ever had in Vista were with online feeds not synching, the weather gadget in 7 stopped working, and so all gadgets stopped working. When I tried to open the gadget menu to remove the weather gadget, it tried to open the gadgets first, which, since they weren't working, would cause the entire gadget engine to crash. I had to remove the wetaher gadget's folder from the Program Files folder to even access the gadget setup menu, so I just turned them all off and left it at that... Until today, when the weather gadget was suddently back, all by itself. Rather than bring them all back, I've opted to keep them all off.

My little brother surprised me with Assassin's Creed II and Modern Warfare 2 for XBOX 360 for Chirstmas, and so all else (including sleep) has been put on hold while I plough through Assassin's Creed II. Three gaming sessions in, and the end is in sight; I'm about two thirds through the story proper, and I've finished the majority of the side missions and collectible treasure hunts. The storytelling in this sequel is still a little off in terms of pacing and dialogue, but the gameplay is much more streamlined than it was in the first game. All of the repetitive missions that a lot of people complained about in Assassin's Creed are now completely optional, and the story progresses much more cohesively. If you're like me and enjoyed completing every last (seemingly meaningless) mission in the first game, don't worry; you can still do that here, and then some... Yeah, the amount of stuff to do is overwhelming, to say the least. Hunting down treasure chests, eagle feathers, statuettes, codex pages, and glyphs, solving brain-teasers, buying art, designing our outfit, reading about the places you've visited, checking out vistas, or just bombing around... You often don't need to go anywhere near the main story for hours. I'm loving the game so far, and I think just about anyone can find something fun to do in there.

Ooh, and I bought the Eidos Collector Pack (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex 1 and 2, Hitman 1 to 3, Just Cause, Kane And Lynch, Mini Ninjas, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Tomb Raider: Legend and Underworld, and eight more Eidos games) and the Telltale Everything Pack (every Bone, Sam & Max, Strong Bad, Tales Of Monkey Island, and Wallace & Gromit game by Telltale) on Steam for $100... Individually, all of those games would cost over $450... I love holiday sales :)

Can't remember...

...I know I picked something else up since my last post, but I can't remeber what it is.

Wait, I did find Tiger Woods '10 for Wii (sans MotionPlus) for $29, and that was pretty sweet; there was something else though... I'll hafta get back to you on that.

Anyway, I finished Shadow Complex, and it was really good. The game was a little on the easy side and the dialogue was horrible (though the actors struggle through it admirably), but everything else was top-shelf stuff. Gorgeous graphics, visceral gameplay, plenty to explore, room for creative problem-solving, and compelling reasons to go back and find what you may have missed.

I then took some time to get into Muramasa, and quickly realised just how similar it is to Odin Sphere... But with a far less overwhelming inventory/forge/whatever, and with an amazingly fluid combat system. After the Bayonetta demo (which, like Devil May Cry, was very pretty but played very much not to my liking), Muramasa was a nice reminder that the hack-'n-slash/beat-'em-up genre hasn't completely left me behind in the '90s ;)

Before I got too far into Muramasa, I set aside an evening to finish LostWinds 2. I cannot stress enough just how amazing this series is. These two games, at only $10 each, are reason enough to get a Wii; they employ the Wii's controllers in a way so intuitive that I almost never paused to marvel at how well it worked; the graphics are beautiful; the music is hypnotic and suitably mysterious; the gameplay offers a challenging, but not overwhelming mix of puzzle-solving and platforming; and everything is bursting with character, from the animations and lighting to the musical cues and journal entries. The second game adds a great selection of new obstacles along with new tools to overcome them, and really feels like a new game instead of just another episode in the series. My only complaint is with the time between releases, and that's more of a compliment than anything else.

More Stuff

I bought two original NES controllers, Mario Pinball Land (GBA), Phantasy Star Online III (GC), and GRID (360) today for $27.

I also picked-up Jet Grind Radio (GBA) and Soul Reaver (PC) the other day, but forgot how old Soul Reaver was... It won't run on anything newer than Windows 9x :( There're unofficial patches to get it running on XP, but they're pre-SP3 and IE8, and don't seem to work. I've read that it works on Vista, so that or Windows 7 may be worth a try.

...Menacing?

I was buying a DVD the other day, and saw a new copy of Deadly Creatures for Wii for $20... And then a new copy of Elebits for $15... And then the cashier told me that it was buy-two-get-one-free, so I picked-up SEGA Rally Revo for XBOX 360. Now then, if only I could find the time to play them :( Still chipping away at Shadow Complex, then the priorities are LostWinds 2, Muramasa, Eternal Darkness, Wario Land: Shake It!... And it just doesn't stop.

I also bought a complete copy of Terminator 2: The Arcade Game for Genesis and dusted off my Menacer... That was fun :)